The World Cup is watched by over 5 billion people on TV. However, the popularity of the talk shows, game analysis and prediction discussions that follow every match have been losing popularity.

Because this age-old format doesn't appeal to today's generation of Arab football fans. 7 out of 10 Gen Z consume over an hour of football content on TikTok. This is their platform of choice when it comes to any and all World Cup content where formats don't follow formal conversations. Instead, match highlights and player profiles are weaved into snackable vertical videos that are meant to entertain first, and inform second.

As one of the title sponsors of the World Cup, adidas wanted to go beyond adding to the noise by creating yet another post-match World Cup show and put the power of redefining what sports content looks like in the hands of today's generation.

The Family Reunion Show was the first World Cup show created purely on TikTok, and by the Middle Eastern TikTok community.

Instead of creating a social series, we created a platform in the heart of all the World Cup action in Doha, where the region's biggest creators could collaborate with each other, and with the biggest adidas football legends and make their own episodes every single day.

Resulting in a World Cup show that didn't follow any of the conventions. Instead, it resulted in a real-time content series that transformed what online football content looked like during the first World Cup held in the Arab world.

On average, users across MENA log in to TikTok over five times a day.

Last year during the World Cup, 70% of young football fans in the region watched match highlights after every game on TikTok instead of recap shows released by the official channels airing the matches.

Most of them spend over an hour a day watching football content on TikTok, even when there is no major tournament happening.

Proving to us that for today's Arab youth, football is less about watching it on TV, and more about discussing, debating and sharing it on TikTok.

That is why, when it came to creating our own content, we chose to not do so. Instead, we put the power of content creation in the hands of today's biggest content creators followed by the youth and let them create their very own show, purely on TikTok.

We started with building a fully functional creator studio in the heart of Doha during the World Cup. Equipped with a camera crew, props, and everything else one would need to create their own show.

The biggest content creators were invited from across the region to ideate, collaborate and create engaging episodes every day, based on what was happening on and off the field during the World Cup.

We then gave the creators full access to all the adidas football legends from the past and present who were at the World Cup.

Giving them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not just feature in, but create their own content featuring the biggest legends of the sport.

Taking their content to new heights, and showcasing football legends unlike anything the region had seen before. Especially considering all the content creators appealed primarily to an Arabic-speaking audience.

+650M views in 2 weeks

8 mins average viewing time (5X higher than the TikTok benchmark)

Highest-performing content compared to anything the creators had published that year

2X more average viewership than post-game TV shows

The platform that hosted most of the content made around epic world cup moments, now had world cup moments happening for the first time on the platform.

The first World Cup in the Arab World was celebrated with the first World Cup show created purely the Arab TikTok community.